Letters 12-11-09

During the past several months, many highway construction projects in Massachusetts (including the Sagamore Bridge) have caused lengthy delays for drivers. The responsible transportation agency (EOT or Army Corps) can reduce the number of project days and the total delay time if the agency encourages contractors to bid on both a baseline and a range of accelerated schedules (project acceleration can increase costs due to use of scarce equipment or worker congestion).

Disaster recovery projects often use project acceleration. The agency still accepts the lowest qualified bid as long as the incremental cost to accelerate Iess than drivers’ implicit value of waiting time.

As an example, assume traffic in the absence of the project moves at a lane flow of about 1,500 vehicles an hour (60 mph with a 200-foot headway) and assume the agency estimates that the project will incur an average 10-minute delay with delay valued at a modest half the minimum wage (about $4); then the agency should accept an accelerated schedule bid, whose incremental cost is less than about $1,000 per lane hour, a criterion which allows room for substantial project acceleration costs and lowers delay time. (Several traffic studies value waiting time at or above the indicated level.)

We hope the above comment is of interest and the newspaper considers posing the question of accelerated schedule bidding to the responsible agencies (EOT or Army Corps), A useful cite on the implicit value of travel time is Calfee and Winston, “The Value of Automobile Travel Time: Implications for Congestion Policy,” Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 69 (1998), pgs. 83-102.

Robert Berry Kathleen Benson Barnstable Kudos to Paul Duffy

In three-quarters of a century of reading everything from the back of cereal boxes to the classics, and scribbling a few published paragraphs, I've often been struck by how difficult it is to write a tongue-in-cheek essay about a serious subject and actually pull it off. Many have tried but – of late – few have succeeded. With last week's column (“Obama calls it quits”), Paul Duffy both tried and succeeded. My compliments. Only too bad it isn't in wider circulation.

The Democratic nominee then supports Cape Wind only by dismissing Mass General Law that protects Massachusetts rate and taxpayers. It’s dubious that the Attorney General acknowledges that Cape Wind energy is more expensive as the consumer advocate by statute responsible to ensure “lowest possible cost”.

Senate hopeful Coakley’s bias in favor of Cape Wind as the subject of a lawsuit filed against the state by the Town of Barnstable, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and citizens prompts the question; “How can a candidate endorsing Cape Wind objectively function as Attorney General advocating for consumers in State Court proceedings challenging Cape Wind?”

Gender and party are less relevant to me in this election than is the virtue of accountability to tax and ratepayers. Scott Brown opposes Cape Wind that is “not economically viable” so he advocates on behalf of citizens who need reliable and affordable energy, not higher taxes and inflated electric bills. Scott Brown has earned my vote for U.S. Senate.